Depopulation of the Sandwich Islands.
It is a sad fact that for nearly a century, the population of the Sandwich Islands has been gradually dying out, and that the process continues even under the now prevailing influences of Christianity. The charge that this is due to the influence and policy of the missionaries has been a standing slander among the enemies of Christianity for many years. It has just been revived, in a most offensive form, by the Chicago Tribune, in a report of an interview with Governor Kapena, one of the escort of King Kalakaua, of these islands, now traveling in the United States. He is reported to have said:— “When Cook came to our islands, we were barbarous, but healthy. Our habits were different. In those days, my people, owing to their beautiful climate, wore very little clothing. The missionaries came first with the Bible, and they spoke of fig leaves and the indecency of being nude. Our people did not wish to shock the feelings of the whites, and adopted their clothing. They dropped the native mantle, which, in old times, used to shield them from the occasional Pacific winds during our short winter. They wore the same light clothing in winter as in summer after Cook came, and this bred consumption, and all manner of lung diseases, which carried them off by thousands. It is somewhat remarkable, that wherever the missionaries came—I will except the Roman Catholics—depopulation followed.” “Reporter.—How do you account for it? “Gov. Kapena.—Because they talked eternal Bible and nothing else. They were forever attending to the spiritual wants of the people, but had no care for their temporal requirements, as the Roman Catholics had. To prove what I say, I have only to assert that in the islands where the Catholic faith obtains, the population has not decreased with the terrible rapidity which it has in Protestant sections. I know it appears strange, but it is so.” Thus the American people are asked to believe the astounding declaration that missionaries have succeeded in placing a numerous and healthy population on the road to actual extinction, by teaching them to wear clothes instead of going naked, a change which the accommodating native accepted and persisted in, purely out of regard for the feelings of the whites! The Interior suspects that the whole statement is fictitiously attributed to Governor Kapena, and has assurance from a friend and classmate of his that he is far too intelligent a man to make such statements. The same paper gives the following statement of facts:— “When those islands were discovered by Capt. James Cook, in 1778, he found them well populated with a healthy and vigorous race of barbarians. The population has been fairly estimated as numbering 400,000, which was as great as those mountainous islands could support without the aid of civilized art and agriculture. Captain Cook treated them treacherously and cruelly. They remembered it against him, and when he landed again in 1779, they very justly killed him. As a result, they were not again visited until 1792, when Vancouver landed, and treating them honorably, was kindly treated in return. He was with them for portions of three years. From that time forth those islands became the resort for Pacific whaleships, over 300 ships visiting them periodically, and for so much commerce, chiefly in sandal-wood, as they afforded—the natives taking their pay mostly in rum. The Hawaiians had no idea of chastity. The marriage bond was a rope of sand among them. Polygamy was universal with those who could afford it. In short, their paganism was of the lowest and most degraded type. The result was, that the Hawaiian Islands became the brothel of the Pacific for the sailors and whaleship crews, and the deadly disease which is the penalty of that vice rapidly infected the population. “Another cause, almost equally destructive, was the practice of infanticide. This originated in the density of the population, and was so excessive that a majority of the infants were murdered. Added to those were the wars of conquest, by which Kamehameha I. reduced the whole group to subjection. These three causes combined resulted in a decrease of the population before the arrival of the missionaries in 1820, not elsewhere found equaled in history. In the forty years which elapsed between the discovery of the islands by Captain Cook, and the landing of the first missionaries on their shores, the total decrease amounted to the fearful aggregate of 260,000. Had not the missionaries been able to check the dreadful destruction, there would not now be a solitary survivor of a race which, less than a century ago, numbered 400,000. The missionaries found a dying race, mortally diseased in body and benighted in soul, and heroically set to work for their salvation. They succeeded in establishing monogamous marriage, in thwarting the licentious ships’ crews to a large extent, and in the establishment of order, law, industry, and other conservative influences.” The exception which the report quoted above sees fit to make in favor of Catholic missions is accounted for by the simple fact that these missions were on islands in the group which have no adequate harbors, and were seldom or never resorted to by the sailors and venders of rum. In reference to the future prospects of the people, the Interior adds:— “We fear the race is doomed. The population has decreased at an average of nearly two thousand per year for the fifty years since the establishment of the missions. During the forty years previous to the arrival of the missionaries, and after the discovery of the islands, the average annual loss was 6,500. The seeds of death planted in their blood seem to be ineradicable. When a man born in a Christian land dies of the disease engendered by licentiousness, he gets just what he deserves. The only regret is, that it does not kill him so promptly as to prevent its entailment upon his posterity. But its ravages among simple-minded barbarians—a people with such capacity for Christian civilization as the Hawaiians proved to have, is one of the saddest chapters in human history.”—Christian Statesman.